Economic Statistics for 6 Jan 12

But you don’t care about that. You care about the December Employment Situation. The BLS reports that 200,000 net new jobs were created last month, with the unemployment rate falling to 8.5%. Average hourly earnings increased by 0.2% while the average workweek rose 0.1 hours to 34.4 hours. The labor force shrunk by 50,000 but household employment rose 176,000 and the number of unemployed declined 226,000, according to the household survey. The labor force participation rate held steady at 64.0%. The U-6 unemployment rate, the broadest measure of unemployment, fell from 15.6% to 15.2%. Every indication is of a slowly and mildly improving labor market in December.